Lack of state and local financial support is the leading problem for school-board members nationally, according to a recent survey by the American School Board Journal and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Fiscal troubles were cited as their most pressing concern by 23.4 percent of the respondents, while 20 percent said the consequences of declining enrollments were their most troubling issue. Parents’ lack of interest in school affairs was a concern of 12.6 percent of those surveyed.
The survey also noted that the number of female board members declined in 1982, reversing a nine-year upward trend. The survey found women constituting 28.3 percent of school-board membership in 1982 compared to 32.8 percent in 1981.
The College Board will no longer administer nine of its achievement tests in New York because of the cost of complying with the state’s “truth-in-testing law,” the organization announced earlier this month.
After June, students who wish to take the board’s tests in European history and world culture, French, German, Hebrew, Latin, literature, level II mathematics, physics, and Spanish, will have to do so in a neighboring state.
The truth-in-testing law requires test sponsors to release the questions and answers for achievement examinations at least once every three years. The College Board says it spends $40,000 to $60,000 per test to write a new examination.
The board is only withdrawing those tests that are taken by fewer than 5,000 students, according to a Board spokesman. Fewer than 200 students in the state took the Latin test and 214 took the Hebrew test in 1981-82, the spokesman said.
